Google’s share declined by nearly 5 per cent as OpenAI unveiled its first artificial intelligence-powered web browser, ChatGPT Atlas, on Tuesday. This puts the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google, which has around 3 billion worldwide users of the Chrome web browser and has also included some AI features from Google’s Gemini technology.
OpenAI’s popular chatbot has now been turned into a gateway for online searches, which could bring in more internet traffic and help boost its digital advertising revenue. OpenAI has said that ChatGPT already has over 800 million users, however, many of them are free users. The San Francisco-based firm also offers paid plans and is considering more ways to become profitable.
ChatGPT Atlas
The AI-powered browser has been designed to offer a personalised web experience and handle tasks such as booking flights and editing documents for the user. Every time someone opens a website in the browser, an “Ask ChatGPT” option appears, bringing up a sidebar where they can interact with the content.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called it a “rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about and how to use one.” The browser will be available first worldwide on macOS and will soon be extended to Windows, iOS, and Android.
Atlas allows users to open a ChatGPT sidebar in any window to summarise content, compare products, or analyse data from any website. In “agent mode,” currently available to paid users, ChatGPT can perform tasks on their behalf, completing actions from start to finish.
In a demo on Tuesday, OpenAI developers showed how ChatGPT could find an online recipe and automatically buy all the ingredients. The agent visited the Instacart website and added the required groceries to the cart, a process that took several minutes.
Google Chrome vs ChatGPT Atlas
The launch of the AI-powered web browser will put it in direct competition with Google Chrome, which held 71.9 per cent market share in the global bsharowser market in September, according to StatCounter.
The value of Google’s parent company fell after the announcement of ChatGPT Atlas. By 11am local time on Tuesday, it was $252.68 but dropped to $246.15 within 15 minutes, the lowest for the day, wiping out around $100 billion in market capitalisation, reports said.
Meanwhile, Google has been trying to adapt to changing search habits ever since the launch of ChatGPT. Depending on the query, a Google search can now show an AI summary, called AI Mode, alongside regular links, providing a chatbot-like experience.